With due deference to Bloody vanity posts brigade I'll keep this as short as I can.

This is the 1st anniversary of the day I first visited (and signed up) at PerlMonks.

I came here looking for a quick fix to an infuriating "perl problem". So insensed was I by my inability to grasp this (to me, then) new language, despite my 20+ IT years and 10+ IT languages that I already had, that I coined a couple of alternative acronyms.

Perl = Painful; excruciatingly ridiculous language.

POD = Purposely Obfuscated Documentation.

Needless to say, but I will anyway, I got over my insensibility. Or is that insensation?:)

I never did solve that original problem per se, I chose to hand the project over to someone else with greater expertise in the field.

I hung around because I saw something at this site that I had never encountered at any similar 'self-help' or 'experts-on-line'. It is difficult to put exactly what it was I saw into words, and maybe it is unnecessary as most of the audience will already have seen and recognised it for themselves, in terms that they understand, but I'll have-a-go, as is my want. I think what I saw was the simple premise that this site, and the vast majority of the people it attracts as regulars are here for the same purpose.

They are here to learn

Unlike many (most?) other places of this type that are available on-line, the real emphasis here is on learning. Sometimes this takes the form of learning by asking. Sometimes learning by showing. Sometimes learning through making mistakes. Sometimes through watching others make mistakes.

With rare exception, most of the people and the responses they write, are predicated on the premise of

"On the basis of what I know, or at least what I think I know, I think this will help you, so here it is. It almost certainly isn't perfect, it may not even be relevant, though I believe it to be, and I am happy to offer it in case it helps, and to learn from the enevitable corrections that will come if what I believe is wrong.

I think that this attitude is most succinctly and most prevelantly summed up by the oft-used sign-off HTH. -- Hope That Helps.

For me, that sums up the difference between this site and so many others. Most people who post here, and I put myself right amongst that list, offer their responses on the simple premise that they "hope that their contribution will, in some way--be it big or small--assist the original poster to whom they respond". And that, for the most part, is it.

This is so different from so many other sites of a similar nature to PM, where the basic premise seems to be one or more of the following:

I'm the guru/expert/great-wise-one and you're a newbie/novice/DSoB and I'm going to prove that by putting you in your place.

We're a close-knit group of code-heads and you're an outsider, and we are going to show you just how much you don't know at every opportunity.

I don't have the time, nor can I be bothered to make the time to try and understand your problem, poor (english|grammer|spelling|punctuation), misunderstanding of the subject-of-reference, but I see an opportunity to make great sport at your expense, so cop this.

I didn't take-in most of what you asked/posted, but I noticed that you (subscribe to my-pet-peeve | contradicted my-pet-dogma ) and so I am going to concentrate my efforts on belittling you, by waffling on at length, on that small, often insignificant-in-context, part of your post.

I've long since forgotten how long it took me to understand X. I've also forgotten how hard it was for me to learn X, or even to find the information I needed to learn X, but now I know it, and therefore I must have been able to learn it. If I can do so, so can you. So get off your lazy lower-lumbar-region and do the same.

For reasons that are irrelavent beyond the fact that they exist, I have had the time that has allowed me to be here almost every day for the last year. As such, I have had the opportunity to read, digest, explore and learn from almost every question that has been posed here in that time. This has allowed me to aquire, sometimes deservedly, perhaps mostly not, an XP-level, along with the associated XP-based ranking, that is noted on my home node. What this proves, if it proves anything, is the wisdom of the note at the top of this page, namely

..and remember there are a lot of things monks are supposed to be but lazy is not one of them

That said, my personal feelings on the value of the much discused, much argued, much denigrated and maligned XP on this site is that it is, in general and in its specifics, a good system.

I don't subscribe to the oft-quoted view that XP is 'just a number', 'a vote of popularity', or 'totally meaningless'.

I do subscribe to the view that it has little or nothing to do with 'expertise', in perl or anything else.

The purpose it serves it purely one of feedback, by the community-at-large(*), to the authors of nodes. If there is a flaw in the system, I would say that it lies entirely in the accumulation of XP and the ranking based upon it. Actually, the problem is more to do with the prevalence and the in-your-face-all-the-time nature of the ranking based on XP. It is the fact that one is constantly reminded of a persons 'rank', and moreover their rank relative to one own rank, that is the greatest source of controversy, dissent and ill-will that surrounds the issue.

[*]Community-at-large as opposed to the central, controlling, elite minority who would hold sway in these matters were this a "moderated environment".

As a feedback mechanism to discourage those that would write 'bad nodes', be they technically inaccurate, socially intolorable or offensive, or simple the--usually, though not always, unsophisticated--flame-bait of would-be trolls. It serves that purpose and serves it well.

As a mechanism for ranking: The presence of people like myself squirrelled between, along-side and above those with hugely greater 'real', hands on experience and expertise, renders the rankings suspect.

The presence of some of the members of that less-and-less elite club of Saints in our book, who have acheived that status despite having made very small contributions (in terms of numbers) to the fabric and materiale of the site has a similar effect.

There are those, and I hope he won't mind me mentioning his name, like Erudil, who's numerical contribution is relatively low, but who's contribution to the site and the wider Perl community, to say nothing of his obvious and apparent perl expertise(**), make their ranking deserved.

[**]There is an old adage, though the traditional wording escapes me right now, that holds that it takes hugely greater expertise to do something skillful, badly, deliberately, than to simply do it correctly. This is often applied to the likes of stuntmenpersons who fall off horses, buildings or roads without hurting themselves, and to the likes of clowns who can fall-down, up, under, over or through all manner of dangerous objects without hurting themselves or others.

My eternal tribute goes out to one of, if not the, Master of both fields: Buster Keaton. Were it that he were alive and working today. Can you imagine what he could have done with the aid of modern technology and special effects:)

There are others on that list, whom I won't name as they are not 'at fault', that have achieved their ranking through longevity rather than contribution. This is the fault of the system rather than the individual. At the end of the day, the system, flaws'n'all, works pretty well, and is a lot of fun. It certainly empowers and encourages contribution. Volume isn't everything, but then neither is simple accuracy.

If you take the premise that this site should have one definitive answer to every question, and repeat questioners should either search and find their answer there, or be breifly, or pre-emptively referred to that definitive answer, then the site would serve no purpose and would die. You could simply freeze the database along with the FAQ's and the super search node to a CD and the site could become a static reference work and a piece of history. The rare occasions when a truely unique and original question comes up could be dealt with through an 'Unresolved question automated dial-out' to a list of half a dozen wildly recognised experts, with a fall-back to p5p or comp.lang.perl.moderated(and friends)(+)or some such.

[+]Update: Merlyn Pointed out that comp.lang.perl hasn't existed since 1995...

But that isn't what this site is about, nor should it be. This site is about learning, assisted learning and community. It's about advocacy, about promotion, about self- and community-help. And everyone, from the noviciates, through slow- and rapid-learners, through acknowledged experts can all contribute to and learn; both from the information here, and, through the interactions that take place at this site.

For my part, I learn something, and usually several somethings every time I come here. This evening, I learnt 3 new things in less than an hour. Two of them were even perl-related:). And I will continue to come here and read and learn, and when the occasion arises, post my questions in the hope of achieving a quicker and/or more complete answer than I could acheive alone.

Trying hard not to come off like the winner at a celebrity awards ceremony, my heartfelt thanks to all those that have contributed to my education here over the past year, and especially to those (they know who they are:) that have taken the time to engage me in debate over some of my more <polite_term> esoteric </polite_term> ideas related to perl and programming in general. I award these people the BrowserUk Award for Valour in the Face of Insurmountable Adversity.

"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -Richard Buckminster Fuller